Viktor Miller, Screenwriter of Friday the 13th, Dies at 86

Viktor Miller, the screenwriter who helped create Friday the 13th, has died at 86 in Alameda, California. His son Ian confirmed the death to Variety.

Released in 1980, Friday the 13th became one of horror’s defining films. It helped popularize the summer-camp setting and the theme of teenage sexual misbehavior, elements that remain closely associated with the slasher genre.

Miller later explained that the film began as an attempt to make something resembling John Carpenter’s Halloween, which had premiered two years earlier. “The first idea was to make something like Halloween. The title came only after the script had already gone through at least one version,” he said in a recent interview with a fan site devoted to the franchise.

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The first idea was to make something like Halloween. The title came only after the script had already gone through at least one version.

He said the summer camp provided a place where young people could be cut off from adult help. The idea that Jason had died before the film began also drew on Halloween’s concept of an earlier evil. The rest of the story developed from the setting and the idea that campers would be eliminated one by one by “the most protective mother in the world.”

Friday the 13th later grew into one of horror’s best-known and longest-running franchises, although Miller did not work on many of its sequels. He also wrote for All My Children, One Life to Live, Another World, Guiding Light and General Hospital. His work on All My Children helped its writing team win three Emmys for outstanding daytime drama series writing. Miller was born in New Orleans and is survived by his wife, Tina Terson Miller, and sons Ian and Josh.

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the most protective mother in the world